How do you feel about publicly funded political ads

For anyone who is not a Canadian the party in power implemented the Canadian jobs plan. At this point watching a variety of channels I have counted roughly 40 commercials per day

. These are payed for by the Government of Canada (with our own tax money)

Here is an example script from a commercial

: Canada's natural resources are a source of prosperity for all Canadians,

Oil and natural gas extraction in the maritimes
Heavy equipment operators in Quebec
Pipeline builders in Ontario
And port workers in British Columbia shipping our product to international markets

This has been a commercial from the Government of Canada

For those whom are curious as to what this lobbies to the Conservative government has ran on being pro natural resource development. Additionally they actually do not mention the main resource province of Alberta. In addition the last line has to deal with the proposed Embridge pipeline, something that still sees protest action within British Columbia

Now that commercial takes roughly 27 seconds, for average commercial pricing you are talking between $15,000-20000, times that by forty and you are talking about $600k per day ( or 218 million dollars a year) to tell us the importance of our natural resources.

on a scale of 1-5 where does this sit with you

1. Great Idea, the commercials are definitely necessary to Canada
2. Ok Idea, would like to see less
3. Commercials are annoying
4. Would like to see eliminated
5. Non - democratic theft of taxpayer money for political campaign / lobbying purposes

* the commercials were not mentioned during Conservative Campaign in 2011 election
** As a British Columbian my provincial government has copied the Conservatives, That and embridge is funneling money into PR ads so i get hit with about 3x more advertisements, may have skewed my Data
*** Just as clarification no funding is being given to the other parties, it is purely paid for the by the government of Canada for advertising the views of the government of Canada. The irony in this is that they just cut a 2$ per vote subsidy given to each party for each vote they got in election, they said this was too partisan a use of public money.

Personally, I wish all campaigns were publicly funded, including spending restrictions. Way, way, way too much money in America (especially since Citizens United) is funneled into secretive Super PACs that pay for advertising for one candidate or another, in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. Level the playing field, allow all parties including third parties to participate, and make sure all influences to the political process remain in the public domain. That's how I see it, anyway.

Shouldn't they pay for their own commercials from their pocket? There are better ways to use tax money.

Because those parties with policies favoring the wealthy will have more money than others to shout their message from the rooftops, regardless of what percentage of the population that actually supports the parties.

Wait, I'm reading the thread wrong. This is about the Cons trumpeting their "action plan" and "go go oil sands" policies, not the vote subsidy.

I'm not at all in favor of the party in government using public funds in this manner, but am strongly in favor of the vote subsidy.